me of the great folks," Abel said to himself. "Wonder
who it is."--Then to the Doctor,--"Anybody get sick at Sprowles's? They
say Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin' some o' their frozen victuals."

The Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon would do well enough. He was
only going to ride over to the Dudley mansion-house.

CHAPTER X.

THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER.

If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., appears as a Centaur, as we
look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern
country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not be
distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel-carriage. He
thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did of land in general;
a house may be well enough for incidental purposes, but for a "stiddy"
residence give him a "kerridge." If he is classified in the Linnaean
scale, he must be set down thus: Genus Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius,
the wheel-animal of infusions.

The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never
occurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients' families,
if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever the narrow
sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging potatoes, or hoeing
corn, or swishing through the grass with his scythe, in wave-like
crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded wheelbarrow, or trudging
lazily by the side of the swinging, loose-throated, short-legged oxen,
rocking along the road as if they had just been landed after a
three-months' voyage, the toiling native, whatever he was doing, stopped
and looked up at the house the Doctor was visiting.

"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin' ag'in.
Winder's half-way open in the chamber,--should n' wonder 'f he was dead
and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see th' winders open like
that. Wahl, money a'n't much to speak of to th' old man naow! He don'
want but tew cents,--'n' old Widah Peake, she knows what he wants them
for!"

Or again,--

"Measles raound pooty thick. Briggs's folks buried two children with 'em
lass' week. Th' of Doctor, he'd h' ker'd 'em threugh. Struck in 'n'
p'dooced mo't'f'cation,--so they say."

This is only meant as a sample of the kind of way they used to think or
talk, when the narrow sulky turned in at the gate of some house where
there was a visit to be made.

Oh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what fears, wh